Reaching The Right Audience
How Do You Know If Your Social Media Posts Are Reaching the Right Audience?
In the busy world of social media marketing, simply posting content isn’t enough. To drive results, you need to know whether your posts are reaching the right audience — the people who care, engage, and (ideally) convert into customers.
At SFM Marketing, we help businesses across Kent and the UK build a social presence that actually works. Here’s how to tell if your social posts are aligned with the right audience — and what to do if they aren’t.
Why Audience Alignment Matters
Getting your posts seen is only half the battle. If the wrong people see your content, your engagement will be low and your ROI will suffer. When your messaging reaches people who don’t relate to your product or service, aren’t in your target geography, or aren’t in the right stage of the buyer journey, your social media effort becomes more noise than value.
By contrast, when your posts reach the right audience, you’ll notice stronger results. Your engagement will be higher, conversations will feel more meaningful, and the people who interact with your brand will be more likely to become leads or paying customers. Ultimately, audience alignment ensures your time and budget on social media delivers measurable business outcomes.
- Define Your “Right Audience” Clearly
Before you can measure success, you must define what “the right audience” looks like for your business. Start by creating detailed audience personas that go beyond basic demographics. This includes not only age, gender, and location but also interests, values, and common challenges. Think about how your product or service fits into their daily life and the problems it solves for them.
It’s also useful to consider behavioural traits. For example, how does your audience behave online? Which platforms do they spend time on? Are they typically in the early research phase of the customer journey, or are they closer to making a purchase decision? The more specific you can be, the easier it becomes to tailor your content to attract and engage the right people.
At SFM Marketing, we begin by working with clients to map out these personas. Having a clear picture of your ideal customer means every post, campaign, or ad has a clear direction and purpose.
- Use Platform Analytics & Audience Insights
Once you know who you’re trying to reach, the next step is to check whether your posts are actually hitting that target. Thankfully, every major social media platform provides analytics tools that make this easier.
For example, Meta Business Suite (covering Facebook and Instagram) allows you to see the demographics of people who saw or engaged with your posts, including age, gender, and location. LinkedIn Analytics is especially useful in B2B marketing, as it shows company size, job titles, and industries, helping you check whether your content is being seen by decision-makers or professionals in your target field. Platforms like TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) also provide breakdowns of who is interacting with your posts.
By reviewing these insights, you can quickly see if the audience you’re attracting matches the personas you’ve defined. If there’s a mismatch—for instance, your posts are popular with people outside your service area—it’s a sign that your targeting or content strategy may need adjusting.
- Track the Right Metrics (Beyond Vanity)
When assessing whether your social media content is reaching the right audience, it’s important to go beyond vanity metrics. Numbers like “likes” or “follower counts” may look impressive on the surface, but they don’t necessarily indicate meaningful engagement or business growth. Instead, focusing on deeper performance metrics will help you evaluate whether your message is truly connecting with the people you want to reach.
One of the first indicators to monitor is reach and impressions. Reach tells you how many unique users have seen your post, while impressions count the total number of times it has been displayed. If your posts have a high reach but very little engagement, this could mean that your content is being shown to people outside your target market who don’t find it relevant or compelling. A strong alignment between reach and interaction is often a sign you’re speaking to the right group.
Closely tied to reach is your engagement rate, which measures how many people interacted with your post relative to how many saw it. Engagement includes likes, comments, shares, and saves. A high engagement rate suggests your content resonates with your audience, while a low rate might indicate a mismatch between your message and the people who are viewing it. For example, if you’re attracting the right demographic but they aren’t interacting, your content may need a stronger call-to-action or a more relatable angle.
Another vital metric is your click-through rate (CTR). This measures how many people clicked a link in your post, whether that’s directing them to your website, a landing page, or another resource. A healthy CTR shows that your audience isn’t just passively scrolling—they are interested enough to take the next step. Low CTRs, on the other hand, could mean that while people see your posts, they don’t find them relevant enough to explore further.
Of course, the ultimate indicator of whether your content is reaching the right audience is conversions and leads. This metric tells you how many people completed a desired action, such as filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase. High conversion rates are the strongest signal that your posts are connecting with the right people, since they show that your audience not only pays attention but is also willing to take meaningful action.
It’s also crucial to pay attention to the demographic breakdown of your audience. Social media platforms provide data on age, gender, location, and sometimes even job titles or industries. By comparing this information with your ideal customer profiles, you can quickly see whether you’re attracting the people who are most likely to benefit from your products or services. If the data shows a different group engaging with your content, it may be time to revisit your targeting or adjust your messaging.
In addition to platform metrics, using referral traffic and UTM tracking helps you understand which posts are driving visitors to your website. By tagging links, you can see exactly which pieces of content generate traffic and whether those visitors behave in ways that align with your goals—such as browsing multiple pages, downloading resources, or getting in touch. This ties your social activity back to tangible business outcomes.
Finally, don’t overlook sentiment and comments. While numbers are essential, qualitative feedback is just as valuable. Positive comments, thoughtful discussions, and relevant questions are a strong indicator that your content is attracting the right people. On the other hand, if you receive negative or irrelevant comments, it could be a sign that your posts are being shown to the wrong audience or that your messaging needs refinement.
By monitoring these deeper metrics rather than stopping at vanity figures, you can clearly assess whether your social media posts are hitting the mark. The right metrics don’t just tell you how many people saw your content—they reveal whether those people are the ones who matter most to your business.
- Compare Against Your Target Personas
Collecting data is only useful if you compare it with your defined target audience. Once you have information on who is engaging with your posts, ask yourself: does this match the personas I created earlier? Are the people liking, sharing, and commenting the same ones who would realistically buy my product or service?
If the demographics, interests, or behaviour of your real audience diverge significantly from your ideal customers, you may need to make adjustments. Sometimes the problem lies in your targeting settings, while other times it’s your content that appeals to the wrong group. Regularly comparing your results against your personas ensures your efforts remain focused.
- Run A/B Tests & Use Lookalike / Custom Audiences
One of the most effective ways to refine your targeting is through testing. A/B testing involves running two variations of a post—perhaps with different images, headlines, or calls-to-action—and seeing which performs better with your audience. Over time, this allows you to refine your content so it resonates more strongly with the right people.
In addition, social platforms offer advanced targeting options. Custom audiences let you target people who already have a connection with your brand, such as past website visitors or email subscribers. Lookalike audiences allow you to expand your reach by finding new people who share similar characteristics with your best customers. Both options give you more control over who sees your content, ensuring that your budget and efforts are not wasted on irrelevant viewers.
- Monitor Trends Over Time
Judging your success based on a single post can be misleading. Social media works best when measured over time. By tracking patterns week after week and month after month, you can see whether your engagement is improving, whether the same types of users consistently interact with your brand, and whether conversions are trending upward.
This long-term approach also helps you filter out anomalies. One viral post may temporarily attract the wrong audience, but if your regular content steadily engages your target market, you’ll know you’re on the right track. At SFM Marketing, we emphasise long-term lead generation strategies because sustainable growth always comes from consistent posting, monitoring, and adjusting.
- Use Third-Party Analytics & Dashboards
While the analytics within each platform are helpful, they often only provide part of the picture. Using third-party tools can help you bring everything together. For example, Google Analytics shows how much traffic your social channels send to your website and whether that traffic results in meaningful actions like enquiries or purchases.
Tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social can also make it easier to compare results across platforms. By combining these insights into one dashboard, you’ll see the bigger picture of whether your overall social strategy is effective at reaching your desired audience.
- Adjust Strategy If Audience Doesn’t Align
Finally, if the evidence shows that your posts are not reaching the right audience, it’s time to make adjustments. This could mean refining your targeting parameters, changing the platforms you use, or reworking the messaging and creative style of your posts. Sometimes, even small tweaks—like shifting the language to better match your audience’s tone or focusing on different content formats—can make a big difference.
Paid promotions should also be handled with care. Boosting posts to a broad audience may expand reach, but it often dilutes relevance. Instead, use paid options strategically with tight targeting controls. You can also gather feedback directly from your audience through polls, surveys, or direct messages to ensure your content is providing the value they expect.
Summary & Call to Action
If your social media posts are being liked but not converting, or if you’re attracting attention from people who will never buy from you, that’s a red flag. The true measure of success lies not in how many people see your posts, but in whether the right people are engaging and taking action.
At SFM Marketing, we specialise in helping businesses identify their ideal audience, measure what matters, and refine their strategies for long-term growth. By focusing on the right metrics and aligning your efforts with your goals, we ensure your social media isn’t just active—it’s effective.
Ready to make sure your content reaches the right audience?
Get in touch with SFM Marketing today for a tailored social media audit and strategy session.